Iraq death toll

Bush - One FINAL Time

Some newspaper editorials, for all their criticism, suggested historians might just be kinder later on than those now writing first drafts of history. A success often cited by those seeking a silver lining was the United States' freedom from further homeland attacks following September 11.

Bush's successor, Barack Obama, will be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president on Tuesday.

"A weak leader, Bush was just overwhelmed in the job," said Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung under a headline: "The Failure." "He confused stubbornness with principles. America has become intolerant and it will take a long time to repair that damage."

Editorials hit out at Bush for two unfinished wars, for plunging the economy into recession, turning a budget surplus into a pile of debt, for his environment policies and tarnishing America's reputation with the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

Bush was given credit in some editorials for defending the United States against terror attacks after September 11, 2001.

Israel was most complimentary, of his intentions if not necessarily of his achievements.

"Of all the U.S. presidents over the past 60 years, it is hard to think of a better friend to Israel than George W. Bush," the Jerusalem Post daily wrote during Bush's final visit.

Last week columnist Caroline Glick wrote Bush "recognizes Israel and the U.S. share the same enemies and they seek to destroy us because we represent the same thing: freedom. But Bush never learned how to translate personal views into policy."

Canada's Toronto Star was categorical in its condemnation.

"Goodbye to the worst president ever," it declared. "Bush was an unmitigated disaster, failing on the big issues from the invasion of Iraq to global warming, Hurricane Katrina and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

"Bush leaves a country and an economy in tatters," wrote the Sunday Times in London. It said America's national debt and unemployment nearly doubled on his watch.

Britain's Daily Mail said he entered office with a budget surplus of $128 billion but exits with a $482 billion deficit.

"He leaves the world facing its biggest crisis since the Depression, the Middle East in flames and U.S. standing at an all-time low.

"How will history judge George W.? Have we, perhaps, to quote his own mangled malapropisms, 'misunderestimated' him? On the plus side, after 9/11 he achieved what became his number one priority: to prevent his country suffering further attack on its own soil. Al Qaeda has been hugely weakened."

LEGACY OF WARS

The Scottish Daily Record observed: "America is now hated in many parts of the world. Bush leaves a legacy of wars and the world economy in meltdown. He has been dismissed as a buffoon and a war-monger, a man who made the world a more dangerous place while sending it to the brink of economic collapse."

The Economist found room to praise Bush on free trade, immigration reform and China. But its overall view was negative:

"He leaves as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America's reputation since World War Two."

The Sydney Morning Herald complained about Bush's "singular lack of curiosity in international matters" in an editorial titled "Farewell to a flawed and unpopular commander-in-chief."

But it also praised Bush for improving U.S. relations with China and India, his efforts to fight AIDS in Africa. It predicted historians might one day rank Bush in the mid range.

Le Monde disagreed.

"It's hard to find a historian who won't say that Bush was the most catastrophic leader the U.S. has ever known," the French daily wrote. "One success: since September 11, 2001, there was no attack on U.S. soil. But this sits alongside an interminable list of failures, starting with the war in Iraq."

Germany, ridiculed as "old Europe" by Bush's former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld for opposing the Iraq invasion, took aim at Bush.

"Bush brought great misery to the world with his 'friend-or-foe' mentality," wrote Die Zeit.

Stern magazine said: "Bush led the world's most powerful nation to ruin. He lied to the world, tortured in the name of freedom and caused lasting damage to America's standing."

The Pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper resorted to bitter black humor under the headline: "We cried a lot and the joke was on us." It recalled his controversial election win in Florida and how he once nearly choked on a pretzel, watching television.

"Perhaps we could say that fate, which let the American people down first in Florida and then with the issue of the pretzel in the president's throat, ultimately helped them by making sure the president would spend half his time on vacation.

"Indeed, he would have caused twice the damage if he had been more active and focused."

Austria's Wiener Zeitung wrote Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even ranked higher in one international opinion poll than Bush:

"The United States was once the symbol of justice in the world but that has been damaged by Bush. A web of manipulation has cost America $900 billion and the lives of 4,000 soldiers -- along with at least 500,000 Iraqis."

In Poland, the Warsaw daily Dziennik lamented the worst part about Bush's presidency: "It was empty rhetoric."

(Additional reporting by Jakub Jaworoski in Warsaw, Peter Griffiths in London, Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem, and Francois Murphy in Paris; editing by Ralph Boulton).
Reuters (01/202009)

Obama’s Train Ride

PHILADELPHIA – President-elect Barack Obama, cheered by onlookers along the train route Abraham Lincoln took nearly a century and a half earlier, undertook the final leg of his inaugural journey to the nation's capital Saturday, pledging to reclaim America's spirit but also warning of steep challenges facing the country.

Hundreds of excited people screamed and cheered as Obama waved from the back of his inaugural train when it rolled slowly through the station in little Claymont, Del., on the way to larger crowds at stops in Wilmington, Del., and Baltimore on the route to Washington.

Unfazed by frigid temperatures, scattered groups stood waving at crossroads along the way.

"Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union," Obama told several hundred people gathered for the sendoff inside a hall at Philadelphia's historic 30th Street train station. "Let's build a government that is responsible to the people and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable. ... Let's make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning and the hope for the future."

While talking about the future, Obama reflected on the past, echoing the words of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy. He cited the founding fathers who risked everything with no assurance of success in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776:

"They were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line — their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor — for a set of ideals that continue to light the world: That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by, and for the people can endure."

Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who hopped aboard the train in Wilmington, said the train ride marked the beginning of a journey that would change America.

"Our economy is struggling. We are a nation at war," Biden said. "Sometimes, just sometimes, it's hard to believe that we'll see the spring again. But I tell you spring is on the way with this new administration."

This is a momentous time for the Obamas. And for Michelle Obama, it was also her 45th birthday. The crowd in Wilmington sang "Happy Birthday" to her, forcing the president-elect to briefly delay the start of his second speech of the day in which he pledged a revival of the middle class.

"When we Americans get knocked down, we always, always get back up on our feet," Obama said.

"We've heard your stories on the campaign trail," he said. "We have been touched by your dreams, and we will fight for you every single day that we're in Washington because Joe and I are committed to leading a government that is accountable not just to the wealthy or to the well-connected, but to you."

The president-elect's triumphant day — heralded along the 137-mile rail route — started in Philadelphia with a sober discussion of the country's future with 41 people he met during his long quest for the White House.

He told the crowd in Philadelphia that the same perseverance and idealism displayed by the nation's founders are needed to tackle the difficulties of today.

"We recognize that such enormous challenges will not be solved quickly," Obama said. "There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency."

He cited the faltering economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — "one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely" — the threat of global warming and U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

"We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first patriots but to take up the work that they began," he said. "The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right. Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast."

Preparing to board the train, Obama said that "what's required is a new declaration of independence — from ideology and small thinking."

Obama's vintage rail car, known as Georgia 300, was tacked onto the back of a 10-car train made up of Amtrak cars filled with hundreds of guests, reporters and staff along for the ride.

The train was due at Washington's Union Station after nightfall.

At Union Station, as Obama set out from Philadelphia, the vanguard of perhaps the greatest crowd in Washington history was beginning to arrive.

Bursting with enthusiasm, Toni Mateo arrived from Atlanta, where he works at a public relations firm.

"It's going to be life-affirming for me," said Mateo. "It was really important that I come here to represent the family and to take the energy back with me." He said his train car was crowded but quiet — until "I just screamed out `Obama,' and the whole crowd erupted."

Elsewhere in Washington, members of his administration stayed focused on policy.

Addressing the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser, asked for help keeping the momentum going for passage, and implementation, of a measure to jump-start the economy.

House Democrats this week unveiled their version of the bill, an $825 billion package of tax cuts and spending.

Although his path tracked Lincoln's and took on the same overtone of high security, it wasn't the journey of virtual secrecy that the 16th president-elect took so long ago on the eve of the Civil War. Lincoln was smuggled under cover of darkness from one train station to another to avoid a feared assassination attempt.

This year, the FBI has been planning its inauguration mission since June. Large trucks, a bomb-detecting robot, canisters with h

undreds of gallons of water to disrupt a car bomb and other emergency response equipment stretch down a block near the FBI's Washington Field Office.

John Perren, a special agent in charge of counterterrorism, said there was no credible intelligence warning of any attack.

AP 01/17/09